


Untitled

by Shadow_Belle



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: AU, F/M, Scarred!Sansa, Scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-07
Updated: 2011-11-07
Packaged: 2017-10-25 19:04:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/273703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadow_Belle/pseuds/Shadow_Belle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the Comment Fic Meme at SansaxSandor. AU in which Sansa is the one with the face full of scars.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Untitled

She’d stopped speaking after they branded her like livestock—the red, glowing iron searing into the plump little girl roundness of her cheek, the bright blue of her eye, and the long, pale swan arch of her neck. The flesh sizzled like wild boar on a spit, and she remembered a thousand screams ringing in her ears. But there weren’t a thousand voices, only one. Only hers. And the stench, there was nothing like that smell and knowing it was one’s own flesh as it was seared away from the bone. She dreamt of it even when her eyes were open.

Once upon a time Sansa Stark dreamed of silver knights, golden princes and ladies fair. But it had been her golden prince who’d ordered it done where he’d pushed her to the ground and shoved her skirts up to her waist and her direwolf had attacked, scarring the side of his face and tearing out his eye. It had been the silver knights who’d held her down and pushed the iron against her skin. And the lady fair had stood by and watched it all with a silent approval.

It was a boon, this disfigurement. If she’d been anyone but Eddard Stark’s daughter, she would have been branded, then raped, and her head displayed on a pike outside of King’s Landing. They whispered she’d gotten off easy.

Yes, easy walking around with a face that looked like she’d been dead for a year.

“Girl,” a voice startled her out of her thoughts.

She turned to look at the giant of a man whose bulk blocked out the sun and studied his face. Sansa noticed faces more now than anything else. The texture of the skin, the color, the way it stretched over bone and muscle. She found she liked faces that weren’t pretty, deep grooves around eyes bespoke of great suffering. She liked those best. The smooth faces, the ethereal alabaster cream skin, she had no use for them anymore. They were a reminder of how beauty can lie.

His face was not pretty. Nor smooth. It was marked by his travails, the things he’d seen. There was a darkness in his eyes and they were framed with lines. She hadn’t decided if she liked it yet or not.

“A bold little bird, aren’t you?” he said, his voice deep like thunder.

She blinked in answer. Sansa didn’t look away and why should she? He was staring at her face, so it was only fair to allow her the same. She waited for him to say what he wanted, until she realized this was the man her father had spoken of. The one who wanted to marry the Beast of the North as they called her, a second son who’d taken her father up on his offer of a kingly dowry.

He still hadn’t looked away from her face and it seemed to hold no particular horror for him.

They said Sandor Clegane was a brutal man, a terrible man who killed without mercy. Common folk whispered his name under their breath like a curse. Keeps surrendered when he marched on them, armies scattered, for he was the Terror of the South.

Yet when he held out his hand to her, she didn’t hesitate to tuck her fingers into his palm. If this man couldn’t quiet her demons, there were none who could. The horror of him, the blood on his hands, it comforted her. She knew as his wife, no one would ever hurt her again. Not even a prince or a king.

Maybe she’d even stop dreaming of fire.


End file.
